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December 29, 2008

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Charlie Crist has, in the wake of the election, cast himself as a leader of the modernizing, more diverse Republican Party and seems to be weighing in indirectly, via a statement from his state party chairman, Jim Greer, on the Saltsman flap:

As the GOP Chairman in one of our nation’s most ethnically and culturally diverse states, I am especially disappointed by the inappropriate words and actions we’ve seen over the past few days. I am proud of those party leaders who have stood up in firm opposition to this type of behavior.

In Florida we have worked hard to reach out to ALL citizens to promote the Republican Party’s principles and values while ensuring that our commitment to African-Americans, Hispanics, and other minority communities is sincere and credible. Actions such as the distribution of this CD, regardless of intent, only serves to promote divisiveness and distracts us from our common goal of building our party.

Today, the GOP has an unprecedented opportunity to embrace change and inclusion, and we are either going to welcome this opportunity fully or watch it slip through our fingers. We can only achieve success if Republican leaders reject racial or any other acts that divide us and instead embrace what unites us as a nation.

First of all, this was a big laughter for the REPUBLICANS, a big joke right? Now these same joking REPUBLICANS listened to RUSH, now that everyone want to lead losing party, the again on them, in the midt of this mess late as can be. Every wanna-be leader is feighing outrage at this CD!

For a look at the New Direction Democratic Base, do to "www.mexica-movement.org".
Posted By: dfdeportation | December 29, 2008 at 11:27 AM
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Christ, we get it. You have a problem with the mexica-movement website. You have been posting this link on every blogpost for the last three days regardless of relevance to the post and its annoying as hell and completely inconsequential. Stop wasting everyone's time.

Saltzman IS the face of the Republican Party. Sure, he was crass and ignorant...but he put it out there just as it is for them. Yes, they are exactly that ignorant and bigoted. Can't you tell from reading Ben's blog comments?

DFP, I will let you know what I think of that website if it ever becomes a topic of conversation of any relevance. But if you honestly believe that our president-elect is in favor of the "emancipation" of all latin-Americans from Western "occupation" you need serious mental help. This is garbage and nonsense. I think they should give IQ tests before letting you post here.

Crist is one of the few Republican leaders who actually can do the math and realize that Republicans can't win with only white, married, Christian, conservative, Southern/Interior voters. There just aren't nearly enough electoral votes there.

I have a higher IQ than Joe "Botox" Biden and any Dali Bama Cultist...
Posted By: dfdeportation | December 29, 2008 at 12:17 PM
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I'm sorry to break the news to you, but Obama won over 65 million votes, the most in history and a majority of all voters. Your attempts to marginalize him and the 82% of Americans who approve of his transition make you look silly and paranoid. "Cultist" implies fringe thinking outside the mainstream...which come to think of it describes you, Frederik and the rest of the whack-jobs on here. You should take some advice from Crist and face reality. He's a smart man. Your side needs more of them.

so i guess colin powell was right. If the GOP listens to people like Rush and Hannity and Palin they will move further to the right and isolate even more groups. They have been losing independents for 4 years now. guess its starting ti sink in

friends i know in florida talk about crist. they say he is inclusive and these are hard core dems. i have also seen crist over the yeras on tv and he comes across to me as genuine . thats my opinion . the rest of the gop wannabe leaders are facking outrage . they do not care for minorities . they are like what pat buchannan said " i want ur vote but i dont want u to date my daughter or come to my house to eat ." crist sems different . watch limbaugh and hannity try to destroy him!!!!!! then u will see crist is real and inclusive.

What the Publicans need to do is listen to me. First, get all the RINOs outta there and focus on conservative values. Then get prayer back in the schools make Evangelical Christianity the national religion and the Publicans will be majority party in soon time.

GOP = Goofs on Parade -- Saltsman is from Tennessee, the home of RNC racist political ads. Most crackers are the products of sex between first cousins. In Saltsman's case, it must be sex between siblings. Don't anybody take away the shovel from the GOP!

Perhaps the last election cycle has shown Republicans how to be successful in our pluralstic society. Yet, after reading some of these divisive, racist, homophobic entries, it may not matter. People are the political parties (religions, cultures, etc...) not the other way around. I hope it is not too late for our country. - Frank Tillery - One of U.S.

I'm a liberal democrat who spent some time working on the obama campaign. Crist seems to be the only repub who will at least respect my opinion and intelligence, even if i don't agree with him. I will definitly be open to voting for him. If repubs want to be included in Obamas new america, then they need leaders like Crist.

I wonder how many people actually post here. Since you can input your name each time you post, I wonder, frequently if there is one person talking to themselves here over and over.
Posted By: Mike | December 29, 2008 at 12:26 PM
Jay does...

I'm a liberal democrat who spent some time working on the obama campaign. Crist seems to be the only repub who will at least respect my opinion and intelligence, even if i don't agree with him. I will definitly be open to voting for him. If repubs want to be included in Obamas new america, then they need leaders like Crist.
Posted By: ChicagoJosh | December 29, 2008 at 01:08 PM
REPORT ABUSE
A Dali Bama Cultist considering voting for a Republican. That's as believable as that 82% approval rating from the MSM. Says a lot for Crist too...

Charlie Crist is much more dangerous than the right wing nut cases. He is one of the few people of any standing in the Republican party who has a real chance of expanding that party's appeal.
Saltzman, et al, as Republican gruppenfuehrer guarantees the continued demise of the GOP.

Didn't the Republican party just run the candidate all these "Conservatives" were dreaming about? Wasn't McCain that middle of the road, reach out to everyone, all-inclusive candidate? He is, and he got trounced. Conservatives don't need to change a thing about their platform. They simply need to continue demonstrating that they are on the right side of the issues. The pendullum swung liberal in '08. Big deal. It will swing back. It will be fun to watch a Republican sucessfully run on hope and change in 2016 while Obama-fatigue is in full force.

The biggest problem with conservatives is that they are not conservative enough. Most are just RINOs claiming to be conservative. We need to get rid of all the RINOs and the pendulum did not swing librul in aught 8. The librul medium elite just wants you to believe that.

dfd is just being his usual assinine, ignorant self. Just the spoiled child whine and he'll eventually run out of energy and take a nap.
As for Christ, better he lead the GOP than that nutbag Chip Saltser. If Republicans want to doom themselves and their party to obscurity, let Saltser lead. The guy's endorsed by Bill Frist (remember the Shiavo diagnosis via videotape) and is directly responsible for the implosion of Huckabee's campaign. Christ would be a much better choice than that schmuck.

Frederick isn't even an American citizen in the continental USA, so his comments shouldn't bother anyone.
Based on the rantings of Frederick, DFDeportation and a few others around here, I hope that you enjoy your years in the wilderness. If you people have your way, the GOP is destined to be, in all reality, the party of religious extremist white guys.

Libs rely too much on things like "thought" and "analysis." I'm glad I am a conservative Publican because I can listen to talk radio and get all the information I need without the filter of the main stream medium elite.

If we can get Rev BillyBob Nascar here to keep going at this pace, we'll have a Palin/Huckabee ticket in no time and Democratic majorities in both houses permanently. Git-R-Dun, dfdeportation!
Meanwhile, Tom Harkin is sucking the mop...
http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2008/12/agriprocessor-5.html

Saltsman's bone-headed move does not help the Southern White Christian Male Party in its efforts to appear more inclusive. Everyone knows that the Republican Party is dependent on the support of racists to win elections, but you can't have someone so stupidly blatant about it be at the forefront. Find someone who is smart enough to speak in code. Saltsman clearly ain't such a person.

" Crist seems to be the only repub who will at least respect my opinion and intelligence, even if i don't agree with him. I will definitly be open to voting for him. "------------------------------------I agree with you.He is the only Republican that I would most definitely vote for.Thanks God he was Governor during the general election.

Crist is about as close to being a Republican as I am to being a marxist.
As someone who has been around for quite a while I want to let you pseudo conservatives in on a little secret. For the past 40 years the Republican party platform has been conservative but most of our elected officials are just slightly right of the democrats who over that same period of time have slid fully into the socialism/marxist mode.
If you want to be a Republican/conservative, be one. Quit promoting these namby pamby go along to get along idiots like Crist, Duncan and their ilk!!!

Several interesting posts and points here. Everyone will look at this thru the filter (or prism) of their own experience. As a retired, female, senior government economist, I have my own biases:
1. No comments like this are EVER funny. When called out for ignorance, bigotry, racism, sexism or flat out asinity, the perps always say "can't you take a joke." They probably said that all the way to the physical lynchings, in the old day.
2. By all accounts, Gov. Crist HAS made an effort to be inclusive, and to STAY inclusive. Let's get real here: Florida is an extremely diverse state, as the Governor himself wrote. If he wanted to get elected, he couldn't appeal to just one (or even a few) wedge groups: there are too many of them.
3. The Hard Liner GOP-niks think that inclusiveness will somehow dilute their views and power, and in that they are absolutely correct. They have attained their position by fencing virtually EVERYONE who isn't 100 percent in agreement with them on
EVERY ISSUE out of the tent, which is now so tiny it won't cover the elephant's behind.
4. On the subject of the issues themselves, once they wriggled themselves into control, to so called conservatives began to redefine them. "Fiscal conservatism" became a code word for tax cuts for the wealthy and tax raises for the rest of us. "Smaller government" became a code for gutting most consumer protections. "National security" became the convenient guise behind which the likes of Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Doug Feith, and their feckless leader George Bush, happily gutted the Constitution in an effort to install some kind of latter-day 1000 Day Reich.
Wave goodbye, and for a long long time. Don't think for one nano-second as you slide into oblivion that you'll be able to kick the same people whose eyes you conveniently gouged out on the way to the top.

For the no name poster at 8:27AM.
You have totally missed the gist of my post which is, why call yourself a republican when your political philosophy is more in tune with socialism? I thought that was clear in my post but then your being an ex government employee, so was I, we both know about the 10% rule.
Your fiscal conservatism statement being a code word for tax cut for the wealthy and raising taxes on the poor does not hold water. History has proven that lowering taxes on the producers results in increased tax revenues for the government and please explain how you can raise taxes on those who don't pay taxes or work.
Yeah, we really need consumer protection. After all we, the government, dumbed down the education system through "social promotion." Any parent with a half a brain would know that you do not buy a set of lawn darts for a 3-4 year old and allow them to play with them unsupervised. Perhaps you will do the research on this one and tell us how many millions of the taxpayers money was spent putting out the warning. That little episode on proves the truthfulness of that old adage "stupid people shouldn't breed."
One final thing before I go. Please list the articles of the constitution that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld gutted in order to "install some latter-day 1000 day Reich???"

Gov. Charlie Crist is quite a decent Republican and I like him a lot. There have been a few things he has done that I take exception to and have not liked; but overall he does well in Florida. If he did not have a strong, reasonable opponent, I could vote for him...maybe.
FYI, I am a Black female strong Center/Moderate Democrat.
I have no idea if he is gay or not. He just married quite a lovely lady about 2 weeks ago.

I'm sure all that CDS oversight was socialist behavior on the part of our government. Oh, and nothing of the fact that the economy has performed far better under a Democratic controlled White House than a Republican. So, based on you alluding to Democrats as Socialists, I guess Socialism is far better than anything the Conservatives have come up with.

Modernizing the GOP: I guess it's well beyond time for an update to a party that seems stuck in the Reconstruction period of Amer history. But just look at the posts around mine - half of them are still the racist, 'angry white man party' we have at present. There's no modernizing that mentality b/c they are very slow learners. If 2 punishing elections in a row didn't get through to them, I'm afraid nothing ever will.

Redneck, I'm glad you made that second post. The first one just showed that you're drinking the kool-aid and think the GOP's solution should be to move further to the right. But the second post really sheds light on how ignorant crazies like you come to such beliefs. You really believe in the Laffer curve!? When did "history" show us that top-level tax cuts increase revenue? Have you *looked* at the history of Federal revenue, or are you just repeating something you heard George W. Bush say? Let me clue you in: no serious economists have ever believed this nonsense, George senior called it "voodoo economics," and according to the Congressional Budget Office the revenues have fallen every time we've slashed the tax rates. Tax cuts DO NOT pay for themselves. It's just a little fiction Reagan's people created as a "Trojan Horse to bring down the top rate." That's an actual quote from Reagan's Treasury Sec. Now, on to "consumer protection" which you define as frivolous bans of lawn darts (which, by the way, happened during your beloved Reagan's administration). I'm not sure how you think it cost taxpayers "millions" for an existing government agency to issue a press release...but that's not terribly important. Because *real* "consumer protection" means things like meat inspections that keep people from dying of E. Coli, pollution regulations that keep industry from giving whole towns cancer, and the clean air and water act that reduced our children's lead exposure to 10% of what it was. I suppose you think all those things are just protecting the "stupid people" who eat meat, live in towns, or breathe. Come to think of it, this "social Darwinism" is kind of the bedrock of Republicanism, isn't it? Pretty sad. In any case, to answer your final question, the Bush administration violated the 1st and 2nd articles of the Constitution by ignoring legislative subpoenas (and in some cases actual laws) and by using executive orders for legislative purposes. Then they violated the 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th amendments by illegally wiretapping without warrants, holding people indefinitely without due process or trial by jury, and manipulating the press. And that's just off the top of my head; I'm sure if I actually went to the trouble to go back over the administration's history I could find many more ways they behaved in direct conflict with the constitution. So, to recap: everything you said is wrong. Have a nice day.

I wonder if Chip Saltsman is surprised at the public's reaction to his song. As a communicator to the public he should know that the true meaning of a message always resides in the mind of the listener, not in the message intended by the sender. Connotative words like Negro always elicit associations and emotional overtones in listeners. Particularly someone in the public eye like Saltsman has to be aware of the inevitable responses connotative words draw out. But perhaps it wasn't an accident?

It seems extremely disingenuous, but stories about purported Republican racism always seem to provoke comments from Republicans claiming that it's really the Democrats who are racist. There are a couple of those here. Nevermind that well over 90% of blacks vote Democratic...there's still this weird argument. Near as I can tell, the only case they have is Robert Byrd, at 91 years old the longest serving Senator in U.S. history, who in his youth (in a coal town in WV) was definitely a racist. He was also a KKK member for about a year in his mid-twenties, defended the group later, and filibustered the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This was, however, before the realignment of the parties along racial and geographical lines that came with Nixon's southern strategy. Nixon sold out the minorities (he was previously for civil rights) on purpose, as electoral strategy, and somehow the Republicans have never managed to get away from it, even as the electoral proposition it represents has become ever weaker. Which is more to the point: Robert Byrd (racist or not) is not the Democratic Party. I'm quite sure there are racists in both parties. But, since Nixon, one party has consistently, systematically opposed any policies that would improve the lot of minorities, and has also used racial rhetoric and messaging with great frequency. That party is the Republican Party, and it is a racist organization.

dfdeportation, are you a native American? How did you come to live in this country? I ask, because you seem very fired up about "illegal immigrants" which has always been a head-scratcher for me. Not only are illegal aliens as defined by the government remarkably small in number, I'm not exactly sure why we think we should be keeping them out. They are good for the economy, and they generally have solid family, morals, and work ethic. So what's wrong with them? As for me personally, I'm German-Swiss on one side and Scotch-Irish-Welsh on the other. The records don't get back all the way to the old world, but just judging from the time of our "migration" it appears to me that none of my ancestors (or the founders of Jamestown for that matter) obtained a visa or green-card. Should they have been allowed in?